


a cup of tea on a rainy day

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:54:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22065082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: Giles, bemused by the appearing and disappearing colors in his life, has a growing suspicion that he and Jenny are soulmates. Jenny, going out of her way to hide the truth, does her very best to complicate absolutely everything.
Relationships: Jenny Calendar/Rupert Giles
Comments: 15
Kudos: 48





	a cup of tea on a rainy day

**Author's Note:**

> soulmate aus are always my favorite thing to mess around with, and my 2020 resolution is to chase down EVERY self-indulgent idea i EVER have, EVER. i was kinda already doing that before but now i wanna do it MORE.
> 
> happy new year, y'all! polished this off just in time to post it in 2019 california time, but i don't really live in california. so. uh. looks like this is a 2020 fic.

* * *

_i. watcher_

As was his _modus operandi_ when it came to uncomfortable social gatherings, Rupert Giles tried his very best to finagle his way out of the first faculty meeting of the year. He had no time in his busy schedule, he said. The library needed setting up, he said. There were too many books to file, he said, which was really the same thing as the previous excuse, but he was getting rather desperate and Flutie wasn’t wavering. None of these very valid reasons were convincing enough, apparently, because on the first day of school, he found himself dropping his things off in the library, straightening his tie, and reluctantly heading into the faculty meeting.

The room was already full of people, all of them making inane small talk about the weather and local politics and the movie coming out next Friday. Not for the first time, Giles found himself missing the British Museum, where absolutely _all_ the conversations going on were ones he himself were interested in. His department had been staffed by a mixture of Council members and casual occultists, which had meant that historical magic and ancient, powerful artifacts were regular topics of conversation. He truly wasn’t certain how to make small talk that _didn’t_ involve either of those things.

Most people had taken notice of Giles by now; a few seemed to be considering whether or not to go up and introduce themselves. Avoiding eye contact with everyone to the best of his abilities, Giles headed across the room to assess his beverage options—and winced when he saw the selection of low-grade American teabags. _This,_ he thought to himself, _is purgatory._

Someone bumped his shoulder.

He felt a strange little chill run down his spine—one he recognized—and as he turned, he was half-expecting to see Ethan standing there, _fully_ expecting the _rush_ of colors to return to him in a dizzying, nauseating blur. But all he saw was a strange, bright flash before the world was grey again, and he was left staring at a shaken-looking young woman, who unceremoniously shoved herself past him to make herself a cup of terrible-looking coffee.

Giles studied her, bewildered, as she sat down at a nearby table. The world was still grey, and yet—

“Mr. Giles!” said Flutie from behind him. Giles jumped. “Have you met our computer science teacher, Ms. Calendar? You two are the newest on staff—well, we have to replace faculty every year, but you _are_ the ones who traveled the farthest to get here—”

“Thanks, Flutie, but librarians aren’t my style,” said Ms. Calendar tensely, taking a sip of her coffee. She was pointedly avoiding looking at Giles. “Mr. Giles can sit somewhere else.”

Giles blinked, affronted. _Imagine,_ he’d thought _this_ woman to be—but never mind that. “And who said I liked computers?” he shot back, perversely satisfied by the affronted way that Ms. Calendar set down her coffee cup.

“Okay!” said Flutie loudly, looking a mixture of bewildered and frightened, and hurried off to talk to another teacher.

Giles sat down at the table anyway. “By any chance,” he began.

“Are you going to try and hit on me?” said Ms. Calendar before he could finish, glaring at him. “Because you are _so_ not my type.”

This very effectively made it impossible for Giles to try and ask Ms. Calendar what, if anything, she might have felt upon seeing him. His eyes _had_ met hers, he knew, right before the world had flashed and her face had closed off. But there wasn’t an explosion of color—not even a thread of a single red or blue—and so he decided to put his theory aside. “Rather arrogant of you, isn’t it?” he said mildly, turning his chair away from Ms. Calendar’s. “Assuming I have even the slightest interest in such an obstinate, unpleasant person.”

Ms. Calendar responded by attempting to kick him under the table; due to her diminutive stature, her legs didn’t reach him. Giles smirked, and she glared, and he decided to put the matter out of his mind. It was _abundantly_ clear that she hadn’t brought any new color into his life.

* * *

Colors were different for different people, and they changed depending on the day and the loves in your life. His time spent with Ethan had filled his world with violent, vibrant colors—red blood, purpling bruises, the cold, pallid greenish-grey of Randall’s skin—and all of them had faded when he had returned to the Council, save for a cold, forbidding blood-red. Watchers were supposed to be impartial, loyal only to the cause, living in neutral shades of grey. There was blood on Giles’s soul, he knew: he could be a good Watcher, but he would never be good _enough_ to amount for anything. It was why he had been given a secondhand Slayer. 

For twenty years, he had lived in shades of grey save for that pointed, permanent red, and he had never let himself desire anything that might bring any other color to his life. Giles saw color only as a hurting thing—something that came with a cost—and didn’t see how he could be even half a decent Watcher if he was selfish enough to want colors.

But two hours after his job as a Watcher had officially begun, as he was walking to his car to pick up some more supplies, he saw it: amidst the monochromatic hues that he had resigned himself to, a pink blossom poking through the black-and-gray brambles in the parking lot. He stopped, heart pounding, and touched it, trying to think, trying to _think—where the fuck did I go wrong?_ There had to have been _some_ place, some point in the day where he wasn’t paying attention, where he let himself _care_ in a way that wasn’t becoming of a Watcher—

He swallowed, hard. Buffy Summers had not looked at him with the tired understanding of the Slayers he had met. She had not taken up the mantle with the resigned poise he had anticipated. She had had a Watcher before him, and he’d expected that Watcher to have molded her into a young woman suitable for saving the world—but all he had seen was a scared, angry little girl who had never asked to be the Slayer. _Go ahead,_ she’d spat, _prepare me—_

His hands were shaking against the blossom, threatening to tear it free; he dropped them, shoving them into his pockets as he stared at the gentle spot of pink amongst the gray. Colors had never been that for him. He remembered them, remembered how they had felt almost like bleeding, remembered how he had felt more fucking alive than ever with the swirling vibrancy around him—but this shade of pink was gentle. Youthful.

Something worth protecting.

Giles did pick the blossom, then, cupping it quietly in his hands and looking down at it, not sure what to feel. This moment proved him as a failure more thoroughly than any Council report ever could. It was shameful, a Watcher receiving a color from his Slayer. It meant that his heart was soft and his judgment weak. It was Giles’s responsibility to report himself to the Council, to remove himself from their attentions—

—but could he bear that shame again? He hadn’t done anything _wrong,_ not intentionally—not anything he could have _stopped,_ at least. It didn’t seem _fair,_ for him to have worked so hard for so long and for _absolutely nothing._ Perhaps Giles wasn’t suited to be a Watcher, but this color might go away, in time. If he worked hard enough at it.

He looked down at the soft pink blossom, preparing to crumple it—and thought, again, of the vitriol in Buffy’s tone. _Why can’t you people just leave me alone?_ He remembered facing his father across a desk not even hours after watching his friends die, remembered that disinterested annoyance in his father’s eyes, remembered that desperate, clawing feeling— _I don’t want this anymore, I never asked for it, I don’t want to die—_

Giles drew in a soft, sobbing breath, and rummaged in his satchel, pulling out a rarer volume and pressing the blossom carefully between the pages. He didn’t know what a Watcher was supposed to do; he suspected he never would. He _did_ know, however, that if he could protect Buffy Summers from turning into someone as useless to the cause as him, he would—and that would have to be enough.

* * *

He had only just resigned himself to having two colors in his life when he abruptly realized that there were _four._ It wasn’t quite as dramatic a moment as Buffy’s pink flower in the parking lot: a memo was handed to him, and Giles realized that he could see both the blue ink smudges left by Flutie’s signature _and_ the highlighted yellow portions emphasizing things like _DIGITIZE_ and _RESPECT MS. CALENDAR’S WISHES._

Giles looked up into Ms. Calendar’s narrowed eyes. “Going over my head?” he said. “How charming of you.”

“Easier than waiting around for you to answer my emails,” said Ms. Calendar coolly.

“You know for a _fact_ that I refuse on _principle_ to learn the useless mechanics of a passing fad—” Giles began.

“Is that just the snobby-librarian way of saying _I still don’t know how to turn on a computer?”_ Without waiting for a response, Ms. Calendar turned away in a _swish_ of floral skirt, striding gracefully out of the faculty room _just_ as the meeting started. No one seemed to notice that she had managed to escape the absolute boredom of Flutie’s droning on, which seemed _wholly_ unfair to Giles, and he turned his attention back to the memo—

—and frowned, again, at the two new colors. Seeing them didn’t elicit the same sort of panic that Buffy’s had; perhaps because he was now quite thoroughly resigned to his own failure as a Watcher. All he felt was confusion. No newly important people had entered his life. His colors, he thought, were possibly a bit confused themselves.

* * *

Two months into his time at Sunnydale High, Giles was beginning to think that his color-related anxiety had been entirely misplaced. _Much_ more likely was his growing hypothesis that he was finally beginning to lose his mind. Sometimes—sometimes, and _very_ rarely—he would see a flash of color that _couldn’t_ be linked to Buffy, or even to the two new colors that he _still_ hadn’t figured out. A soft shade of purple on a student’s backpack, the lime-green letters on a flyer tacked to a nearby bus stop—and _none_ of them were connected to a person. And Giles would think back to that moment in the faculty meeting, and the chill that had run down his spine, and wonder—

“Hey, asshole, do you even _read_ my memos?” demanded Ms. Calendar, thrusting a piece of paper into Giles’s hands as she walked by. “I wrote you one to let you know I was going to stop by the library with my class to digitize, and when we showed up, _no one was there to let us in!”_

“Forgive me for not wanting to assist you as you _repeatedly disrespect my authority!_ ” Giles shot back, infuriated. She _kept_ on going to Flutie before asking him about _anything,_ and the absolute pushover of a man _kept_ on saying yes.

“Your _authority?”_ Ms. Calendar scoffed, all but screeching to a halt as she turned around to look at him. “You don’t have authority over a Twinkie in this school! I’m not gonna waste my time asking you for things you’re going to just shoot down without even considering—”

“Well, _I’m_ not going to make your life easier if _you_ refuse to _cooperate!”_ snapped Giles.

“HA HA HA HILARIOUS,” shouted Ms. Calendar. A few passing students now looked deeply frightened. “Are you _seriously_ trying to tell me that _I’m_ the uncooperative one here?”

“From the _moment_ we met—” Giles began, and suddenly stopped.

Ms. Calendar had gone pink. No—the pink had spread across Ms. Calendar’s cheeks, blossoming and spreading like a blush, only it wasn’t the _pink_ that was spreading, it was _color._ The pink in her cheeks bled into her skin, and her hair, once black, now had undertones of blue and brown and gold, and her _eyes_ had become an _extraordinary_ chocolate brown—

 _That settles it,_ thought Giles. _I really am losing my mind._ From head to toe, standing out starkly against the mostly-monochrome that was the rest of the hallway, Ms. Calendar was in _lush_ color— _nothing_ like anything he had _ever_ seen before. She drew in a soft, nervous breath—he realized, with a start, that she _was—_ that she _had_ to be—

“Maybe,” said Ms. Calendar, “you’re just so fucking annoying that I couldn’t _help_ but hate you on sight.”

The colors vanished, as quickly as flipping off a light switch. Giles wanted to feel the same furious resentment towards her, but he was still reeling from the way it had felt to see her in _color._ Time and bitterness remembered Ethan’s colors as terrible things, but Ms. Calendar’s colors had felt like fine art. Like magic, but the good kind. Staring at her almost hungrily, Giles found himself lost for words.

Ms. Calendar seemed uncomfortable under his scrutiny—a fact that further confused Giles. She shook off his insults without skipping a beat, but _this_ had her nervous? “Ms. Calendar,” he said tentatively, testing the waters, “by any chance—”

 _“No,”_ said Ms. Calendar very loudly, and _ran_ to her classroom.

Well. That was a bit unusual.

* * *

_ii. technopagan_

Colors popped in and out of Jenny’s life at a nauseating rate—like she was on some kind of bumpy amusement park ride that kept jolting to the side when she least expected it. She’d be grading papers, and just for a second, she’d see the _flash_ of the honey-brown wood grain on her desk. Or she’d be teaching, and all of a sudden, Willow Rosenberg’s hair would _blaze_ red, then vanish as quickly as it had come. It was only when she wasn’t paying attention—only when she let herself forget the quiet, furious mantra she’d been saying ever since she locked eyes with her soulmate in that goddamn faculty meeting. _You’re here for your family, not for you._

She’d tried to tell her uncle during one of the phone calls, but as soon as she’d said the word “soulmate,” he’d let out a derisive laugh. _You have no soulmate,_ he’d said. _You are a selfish little girl if you chase down every foolish whim. Exercise self-control, Janna, and remember that you are here to serve your people. Do not lose sight of your purpose._

It hadn’t stung; she’d been expecting a reaction like that. It was why she was trying so fucking hard to fight the colors off. Her efforts were, of course, made easier by the fact that she _refused_ to believe Rupert Giles could ever be her really-truly soulmate. She’d heard lots of fairytale stories, growing up, about the rush of certainty and surety a girl felt when she looked into her soulmate’s eyes; when she’d looked into Rupert’s, all she’d thought was _really?_

She’d read lots of web articles about brief cosmic mismatches, about colors that showed up unexpectedly for two people that shouldn’t have ever been together. Rupert had to be one of them. He had to be.

* * *

Except sometimes, when Jenny and Rupert were having one of their usual faculty meeting shouting matches, Rupert’s eyes would glint green _just_ for a second, standing out stark and bright against the greyscale that was the rest of the world. It would only be a second, and Jenny _never_ let it throw her off her angry tirade against his outdated sensibilities, but it was a consistent, pointed reminder that Jenny had made the decision to shut her soulmate out.

But he was _not_ her soulmate. He _couldn’t_ be. Jenny couldn’t think of a single thing she liked about him, and soulmates—she’d spent _weeks_ researching them, reading accounts written by people who _had_ them, and all the first meetings she’d read about were things of beauty. _My soul sang,_ one woman had written, _as though it had found the missing half of its whole._

Jenny was a perfectly complete person all on her own, thanks. None of that half-of-a-whole bullshit had _ever_ appealed to her, and she _didn’t_ like the thought of how much Rupert would gloat over the concept. _You’re incomplete without me,_ he’d say, a smug laugh in his voice. _And here you were thinking that you could dismiss my ideas offhand—_

Fuck that. Fuck him. Jenny was _infuriated_ by this curveball. As though she didn’t have enough to deal with as it was! Sure, Angel seemed just as miserable as ever, but that didn’t mean her family didn’t want weekly letters and monthly phone calls and _lots_ of detailed descriptions on how, exactly, he was suffering. _Rat-eating suffering or lonely-moping suffering or both?_ Did it _matter,_ Uncle?

Jenny was half-expecting it to be her uncle again when the phone rang well after sunset. Gritting her teeth, she took a deep breath in through her nose, then picked up the receiver and said in her best, calmest tone of voice, “What’s up?”

 _“Ms. Calendar, there’s—I need your assistance with a technical matter,”_ said Rupert awkwardly.

“Rupert?” Jenny was honestly too surprised to remember how to be pissed at him. “How did you get this number?”

 _“Staff directory,”_ said Rupert. He didn’t sound as openly hostile as usual, and it threw her a little. _“I realize it’s late, but it’s extremely serious, and you’re really—”_ He swallowed. Then, with great effort, and sounding _extremely_ unhappy about it, he said, _“You’re really the most qualified person for the job.”_

Jenny considered. This seemed like a rare moment. “And how exactly am I the most _qualified?”_ she said, smiling slowly. “Please elaborate. In detail. Maybe write an essay.”

 _“I’m not going to stroke your already inflated ego, Ms. Calendar,”_ said Rupert irritably. Ah, _there_ was the hostility she’d been missing. _“Just come down._ ” He hung up.

Well, she had been planning on grading papers tonight, but Rupert Giles asking _her_ for help was too wonderful an opportunity to pass up. Jenny played back _that_ statement in her head, over and over, enjoying the way it sounded in Rupert’s delectably British accent— _you’re really the most qualified, most qualified, most qualified—_ and then, still grinning, she headed out of her apartment, a newfound spring in her step.

Rupert was in his office when she finally reached the school, listening to a radio broadcast with a kind of dazed panic. He looked up at her as though he had almost forgotten how to hate her—that was how frightened he was. It threw Jenny off, _more_ than a little—and for a moment, she saw that warm _green_ in his eyes, standing starkly out among the monochrome. She swallowed, hard, and blinked, and ignored it. It was gone when she opened her eyes again.

“Got your message,” she said. “What’s so urgent?”

It took Rupert a moment to respond, and she realized that his eyes were still locked on hers. When she squinted back at him, he coughed and looked away. “My mistake,” he said. “I’m a bit lightheaded. Are your eyes brown?”

Heart pounding, Jenny gave him her best attempt at a long, unimpressed stare. Slowly, and feeling _certain_ that he could see right through her, she said, “I don’t have a soulmate, Rupert. I wouldn’t know. Is this what you called me down here for?”

Rupert blinked, then blinked again, that annoyed look from their first faculty meeting crossing his face. “You _don’t_ have a soulmate,” he said. “Of course. Well. There’s a demon in the Internet, so if there’s anything you can do about _that—_ ”

“Lots, actually,” said Jenny, feeling a thrill of self-satisfaction at the way his eyes widened. “Where do you want to start?”

* * *

Willow had given Jenny the deep, rich purple found in a ripe plum or a dark shade of lipstick. It was a calming color, one that _didn’t_ snap on and off like a traffic signal, and Jenny would focus in on it to the best of her abilities when the constant color wheel made her head ache and her stomach churn.

“You okay?” Willow asked softly.

“Hgghhggh,” said Jenny, and buried her face in her hands. Eyes closed, all she could see was black.

“So that’s a _yes?”_ said Willow, a touch of dry humor to her voice. Jenny looked up, and saw the purple stripes on Willow’s sweater. Blue and green flickered at the sleeves—a pointed reminder that _no,_ Jenny’s problems would _not_ be solved by ignoring them—but Jenny ignored them. “You’ve seemed a little off lately.”

Jenny sighed. “I should probably take a sick day,” she said. “I’ve been feeling a little nauseous.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t entirely the truth—she’d gotten pretty good at those.

“Aww, poor Ms. Calendar!” Willow reached out, patted Jenny’s shoulder, seemed to realize that she was being _extremely_ familiar with her teacher, and blushed red to the roots of her hair, jerking her hand back. “Um—th-the—I’m sorry!” she squeaked.

 _Red,_ Jenny thought with a wince, just as Willow’s blush vanished back into grey. Her head throbbed. “It’s okay,” she said. “Honestly. Um, I’m gonna—I’m gonna go get some water,” and quietly, she slipped out of the classroom, hurrying a small distance down the hall before leaning heavily against the lockers.

She couldn’t keep going on like this. Her head _ached,_ her job performance was slipping, and she was barely paying attention to her extracurricular vampire-watching duties. She _wasn’t_ losing sight of her purpose, but not acknowledging whatever it was that the colors were trying to tell her might just end up killing her—

“Ms. Calendar?”

Jenny’s head snapped up. Rupert had stepped out of the library, satchel slung over one shoulder—and while it was clear he had just ended his work day, he was now changing his course to head towards her. God, did she look _that_ bad? “I’m okay,” she said reflexively.

Rupert raised an eyebrow. “Given that I didn’t actually _ask,_ ” he said, “it’s interesting that you’re already trying to deflect.”

Jenny tried to smile back, or say something incisive, or do _anything_ other than stay pressed against the lockers, but her _heart_ was pounding as she looked at him, and she didn’t at all want to think about what that might mean. “I’m _fine,_ ” she said again, helplessly.

Rolling his eyes, Rupert said, “Are you constantly going to attempt to beat off my attempts at common decency?”

Oh, thank god. For a second there, Jenny had been thinking about ridiculous things like fate and destiny and hearts entwined, and _not_ the fact that nine times out of ten, every time Rupert Giles opened his mouth, she had to resist the urge to start hitting him with whatever she was holding. Right now, that happened to be—she looked down—nothing. Well. She could always just start hitting him. “It’s not _common decency_ if it isn’t _necessary,_ ” she said irritably. “It’s just you being your usual annoying goddamn self and making my headache _worse—_ ” And as soon as she said it, she realized with a start that her headache had been gone from the moment they’d locked eyes.

Stupid fucking goddamn fucking soulmate crush.

Rupert, however, had focused in on a different aspect of that sentence. “ _Headache,_ ” he said triumphantly. “You _are_ doing poorly, I _knew_ it—”

“Could you be any more of a five-year-old?” said Jenny sharply, more pissed off at him than she probably needed to be. It wasn’t his fault that the universe had somehow decided to pair them up—but she didn’t really know who else she could be mad at. The universe? Her uncle? Angelus? Principal Snyder? She was kind of already mad at them anyway; it seemed redundant. “Fine. I’m not okay. But I did _not_ ask for your help.”

Rupert made an extremely disapproving, extremely British noise, then extended his arm the way people did in old movies.

“Are you serious?”

“Would you rather I pick you up and bodily carry you to the nurse?”

 _YES,_ said whatever fucking part of Jenny’s brain had started this soulmate nonsense. She told it to shut up. “I’ll write you up for harassment,” she said, smiling sweetly at him.

“I’ll say you were resisting medical care and I stepped in as a concerned coworker.”

“ _I’ll_ say _you_ were—”

“For fuck’s sake, Ms. Calendar,” said Rupert. “Just come to the library with me so I can give you an aspirin.”

Okay. Well. When he put it like _that,_ she _did_ seem kind of unreasonable. “ _Fine,_ ” said Jenny, trying to make it sound like she was only giving in to shut him up, and followed him into the library, doing her best not to dwell on the fact that she really didn’t need an aspirin at this point anyway.

Rupert opened his office door for her. Jenny glared at him, but he didn’t cave, so she stepped into the office, swinging herself up to sit atop his desk. Something caught in her chest when she saw him open a locked drawer _full_ of pain medication. “Oh,” she said. “I’m, uh, guessing the supernatural crime-fighting lifestyle kinda wears on you, a little?”

Rupert gave her a strange look. “I hadn’t expected you to care,” he said.

Jenny let out a breath. “Wow,” she said. “Blunt. If we’re being honest, me neither, but…” She trailed off, not entirely willing to finish that sentence, and _not_ dwelling on the way something softened in Rupert’s expression. “Aspirin?” she said, trying her best to change the subject.

“Of course.” Rupert handed her the bottle. Their fingers brushed, and—

And Jenny looked up, again, into Rupert’s eyes. _Green,_ she thought. Then, _no, blue,_ and after a good five seconds of consideration she decided to settle on seafoam green. It seemed an apt enough description, she thought; there was something in those eyes that felt as turbulent and unfathomable as the ocean on a stormy day.

“Ms. Calendar?” said Rupert. He sounded almost shy.

 _I’m going to fall in love with him if I’m not on my guard,_ Jenny realized, the thought knocking her a little off-center. _I need to get better at this._ Hastily, she popped open the bottle and shook out two aspirin. “Um,” she said, _really_ hoping that Rupert didn’t see enough color to tell that she was blushing. “Water?”

Wordlessly, Rupert handed her a glass.

“Prepared for everything,” said Jenny, trying to laugh, and downed it, swallowing the aspirin. She did her best to give him her usual breezy smile, but the soft, steady way he was looking at her made it difficult to pull off. “Thank you.”

“I feel quite strongly that if I left you alone for two seconds, you would die,” said Rupert.

The emotional whiplash Jenny experienced from bouncing between _this man is my soulmate_ and _this absolute idiot needs a swift punch to the face_ really couldn’t be quantified. “Go fuck yourself,” she said cheerfully. “I can take care of myself just fine.” With that, she swung herself back off the desk, pushed past Rupert hard enough to jostle him, and hurried back towards her classroom, feeling bizarrely chipper for the first time in weeks.

* * *

About two weeks later, she found out exactly _why_ Rupert had a locked drawer of pain medication in his office.

“Does your Vampire Slayer beat you up often, or just on weekends?” Jenny asked, voice raised just enough for Rupert to hear her over the blaring music of the Bronze. She’d done her best to create a cold compress out of ice cubes and paper towels, but it was melting fast, and water was dripping down the side of Rupert’s face as he held the sopping paper towels to his forehead. She couldn’t tell whether he was being a gentleman and utilizing her terrible attempt at first aid or too exhausted and mildly concussed to even notice that his clothing was getting soaked.

“Oh, just on weekends,” said Rupert, _much_ too loudly. For a librarian, the man had no concept of consistently regulating volume—it was either quiet and reserved or loud as all fucking get-out. “Weekdays are when the _vampires_ throw me into walls. And morgue drawers. And more walls.”

There was a coppery tint to his glasses, Jenny noticed—the same one she’d seen on the sign when they were coming in. But two colors weren’t anything to write home about, and her mind was still on Angel; she didn’t think she’d created a _huge_ problem. Even if they _were_ soulmates—now that she knew him as a Watcher, as a teacher, as a _friend,_ the prospect seemed _slightly_ less terrible—she had it under control. She wasn’t selfish enough to forget about her duty to her family in pursuit of an okay-looking librarian.

Rupert turned his head towards her. “Am I concussed,” he said, still very loudly, “or are we becoming friends?”

“Concussed,” said Jenny. He started to laugh. “You’re gonna have to go to the ER. Serious brain damage.” She was laughing too; it surprised her. “But in the event that you’re _not,”_ she added, extending a hand across the table, “I legally require all of my friends to dance with me when I’m out on the town and there’s music playing.”

“You cannot seriously call this _out on the town,”_ said Rupert.

“So we _are_ friends!”

Rupert rolled his eyes. “You’re the only one who had objections towards that,” he said.

“Bullshit.” Jenny reached her other hand across the table, tugging the mess of paper towels away from Rupert’s face and letting them drop to the floor. He made a disapproving noise, but smiled—soft and shy—when she grabbed his hands instead. “Dance with me.”

“Absolutely not,” said Rupert. God, he looked so sweet when he smiled. Younger, and not as austere—though she could kind of understand being tightly wound if _saving the world_ was what he did in his free time. “I have two left feet, Ms. Calendar, I would _only_ embarrass you.”

She almost told him _call me Jenny,_ but didn’t. “The point of dancing isn’t for other people to _watch,_ ” said Jenny indignantly. “It’s for _you_ to have fun.”

“Rather a selfish concept,” said Rupert uncertainly.

“Rupert, if you think _having fun_ is selfish, I am _seriously_ concerned.” Jenny gave his hands an impatient tug, inadvertently pulled him across the table—and found her face surprisingly close to his. This close, she could see that his eyes _weren’t_ the same color—one had a splash of brown, radiating out from the pupil—and that his mouth quivered a little nervously when he smiled, and that he was moving almost unconsciously forward, but not to kiss her, just to look at her—

“All right,” he said.

Still focused on trying to classify the caramel-adjacent color of that star in his eye, Jenny completely missed this. “Hmm?”

“All right, Ms. Calendar,” said Rupert, and stood up, pulling her out of her seat. Jenny stumbled, and he took advantage of her confusion, tugging her through the crowd and towards the dance floor. The song was fast, but he took her chastely in his arms regardless—holding her at a respectable distance, like a Regency waltz.

“Oh my _god,_ Mr. Darcy!” said Jenny incredulously. “Loosen up a little.”

“That _would_ make you Elizabeth, wouldn’t it?” said Rupert, grinning. “I think it fits.”

She felt a strange kind of _longing,_ then, looking up at him. She belonged to her family, to the people who had raised her, the people she owed the world to, and _god,_ what would she give to be selfish enough to fall in love with him? She liked him, now—enough to want to know him more—and the exasperation was now colored with a blossoming fondness that felt like it had the potential to spill over into more, if she let it. It would be so sweetly _normal,_ falling in love with a coworker, carving out places for each other in their lives, and it wasn’t something that she was allowed to have.

The anger and frustration had given way to a quiet, tired conviction. Summer would make it easier. Three months away from him would clear her head. She would come back fresh and new, ready to enjoy his company, and she would be able to focus in on the real reason she was here in this town.

* * *

_iii. rupert_

Over the summer, the strange little flickers of color had blossomed, quietly, into more lingering impressions. If Giles concentrated, he found himself able, on occasion, to keep a greenish tint to the grass, or a warm blue in the sky. Still, they faded eventually, leaving him feeling—not bereft, because he knew they would come back, but…puzzled. Like there was some vital piece of information he was missing.

The feeling was intensified by the fact that he _still_ hadn’t identified where in the bloody hell those two other colors had come from. The dust jacket on one of his favorite books was no longer a nondescript black, but a vibrant, inky blue. In the small convenience store two blocks from his apartment, a jar of yellow-green highlighters stood out in stark contrast to the grey and white of the other pens surrounding them. They didn’t _feel_ like the gorgeous colors that had blossomed from Ms. Calendar’s blush—strangely, they felt closer to _Buffy’s._ But Buffy had given him pink, and he knew in his bones that that was the only color of hers in his life…so why did these two new colors exist at all?

The answer came to him on the first day back at school. Not immediately; first, of course, he was taken off guard by Ms. Calendar, looking sweetly pretty even in black and white. His mind was still occupied with thoughts of her when he entered the hallway—

—and that was when Buffy, Willow, and Xander descended the stares in a cacophonous clatter of cheerful voices. And Giles felt that same _feeling_ rise up in him, looking from Willow to Xander, that he had had every time he had laid eyes on those two strange colors. Confusion, pleasure, and—now, he realized, he could identify it as a quiet _pride._

“Giles!” Willow beamed at him. _Inky blue._

“Yo, G-man!” Xander grinned as well. “What’s up!” _Highlighter yellow._

Giles smiled, shyly, and ducked his head without a word, feeling strangely overcome. He _knew_ he should feel ashamed. He knew any self-respecting Watcher would feel ashamed. His emotional ties were something to be disregarded, discarded—

“Hey, Rupert, the kids are saying hi to you,” said Ms. Calendar, reaching up to squeeze his elbow. Giles looked to her, and though the rest of her face was still in black and white, he could see that her eyes were a warm, soft chocolate brown. “You gonna say hi back?”

Maybe, Giles thought, he might not mind a _bit_ of color in his life.

* * *

Ms. Calendar fell into step with him as they headed towards the faculty room, and they settled into the quiet, comfortable silence of friends. Giles snuck glances at her when she wasn’t looking, which was often, as her eyes were trained ahead. After a few minutes, and right before they entered the faculty room, he said quietly, “Why _did_ you come back? Any self-respecting person who knows the truth about this town—”

Without a word, Ms. Calendar tucked her hand into the crook of his arm.

 _Oh,_ thought Giles, and his heartbeat picked up. Perhaps—perhaps things with Ms. Calendar, if she even _was_ his soulmate, wouldn’t be as straightforward as a gorgeous burst of color the very moment they met. Perhaps the colors might take years to stick. Perhaps they might never stick at all.

Perhaps he didn’t mind that, so long as it was _her._

“I hope you know that I consider myself very lucky to have you as a friend on staff,” he said, surprising himself a bit at the honest tenderness to his statement. “Thank you for coming back for me.”

“Oh, th—well—we—” stammered Ms. Calendar, blushing a _vibrant_ shade of pink. Giles was _very_ grateful that Buffy had given him that color; seeing it on Ms. Calendar’s face was _extraordinary._ “I mean, it wasn’t _you_ —there are—other—there’s totally other reasons I came back, Rupert—”

“I’ll thank those other reasons, then,” said Giles, grinning a bit shyly. “It, it rather seems I’m the one reaping the benefits.”

Ms. Calendar’s blush deepened and she let her hand drop from his arm. As she hurried past him into the faculty room, Giles watched those same warm, gorgeous colors spread quietly through the hallway—and then vanish, again, as she turned back to look at him. “Are you coming?” she said, still a little flushed. “I’ll save you a seat if you want to just stand in the hallway looking at nothing—”

The colors, Giles thought, paled in comparison to the way he felt around Ms. Calendar. The colors felt unimportant. “Ms. Calendar—”

“Jenny,” said Ms. Calendar.

Giles blinked. He hadn’t actually learned her name. She’d said it when they’d first met, but his stubborn insistence on _Ms. Calendar_ had meant that he’d quickly forgotten it. _Jenny, Jenny, Jenny,_ he thought, trying the name out, and found that he liked it. It suited her. Pretty and warm. “Jenny, then,” he said. He _wasn’t_ thinking about the colors anymore: he was only thinking that being around Ms. Calendar—around _Jenny_ —made him uncomplicatedly happy.

 _“Well,”_ said Ms. Calendar suddenly. “Janna, technically.”

 _This_ seemed like something that she didn’t tell just _anyone,_ if the sudden wide-eyed expression on her face was any indication. “Would you like me to call you that?” Giles asked carefully; as of late, he was beginning to suspect that Jenny needed gentler handling than she let on.

“Um,” said Janna. She colored. “It’s—I mean, I just—I go by Jenny at work. But.”

Was she _stammering?_ Giles tried to think of a reason that she might be so flustered, and the only ones that came to mind made his heart flutter with a shy anticipation. If she was—if she wanted— _“Janna,_ then,” he said. He didn’t know _what_ was possessing him—only that suddenly, it felt of the _utmost_ importance that they were both clear on his intentions. “What would you say if I asked you out to dinner?”

* * *

_iv. jenny_

Rupert had asked her out to dinner.

 _Rupert_ had asked _her_ out to _dinner._

Jenny had been expecting Rupert to stammer himself into oblivion around her, the way he’d been acting, and she’d been relieved by the concept of having some time to figure out how she felt about him. She’d _never_ been expecting him to look at her with certainty in his eyes and ask her to dinner with such sweet directness that she was left speechless. She was used to him being either unapproachable or awkward, not—not _gentlemanly._ Not _warm._

There were a thousand and one reasons for Jenny to tell Rupert: _no, I can’t, I’m sorry._ Not one of them was coming to mind.

“I’d ask you if tonight worked,” she said.

* * *

_v. giles, regarding jenny_

“Do you have—”

“In my coat pocket.”

“You didn’t let me _finish._ ” The last word was something of a gasp; Giles had pushed Jenny (gently, of course) into the wall, pressing kisses to her neck and throat. “Rupert, _stop—”_

Immediately, Giles pulled back, searching Jenny’s eyes for any sign of uncertainty. “Is this not—?”

Jenny blinked, a little startled. “Wow. You don’t hesitate to…you know, hesitate.”

“Well, you said _stop—”_

Jenny smiled at him, soft and tender. This time, the slow blossom of color began at her lips—but Giles found himself unable to focus on the colors, or care about what they meant. What mattered more than that was the way Jenny’s eyes shone with a shy appreciation. “I’ve had boyfriends where it takes them a little longer to take notice,” she said.

“You’re dating rubbish people,” said Giles.

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Did we not talk about this, Rupert? I don’t appreciate when you’re self-deprecating.”

“What—oh, Christ,” said Giles with a mixture of amusement and exasperation, bumping his forehead against hers. “Jenny, what did you want to ask me?”

“Do you have _protection?”_ said Jenny.

“As I said,” said Giles. “In my coat pocket.”

“Well—that’s—”

“We’re quite in tune, if you recall.”

“Excuse _me_ for getting used to you being _wrong_ about what I want!” said Jenny, and tried to kiss him again. Giles stopped her, catching her face in one hand and holding her, carefully, so that their mouths were inches apart. “Rupert?” she said softly, a tremor in her voice that spoke more to arousal than fear.

“Let me be very clear, _Janna,”_ murmured Giles, noting with fondness the way she smiled at the name she had entrusted him with. “I think _very often_ about what you want. It’s simply that we’ve only recently begun to be on the same page regarding what should transpire between us.”

“Sex,” said Jenny without hesitation.

“Precisely,” said Giles, and kissed her again, tangling his hands in her hair. As he tugged her up to meet him, he heard her shoes fall off—those lovely, slightly impractical clunky heels—and then felt her legs wrap around his waist, pulling him _very_ close.

The sheets in her bedroom were red, he noted, but not blood-red—more the color of a ripe pomegranate. Jenny fell against them with a laugh, dark hair spilling against the pillows. He caught hints of blue as well as brown when the lights shone down on her, and found himself cataloguing all the colors he saw: her blouse, olive-green. Her tawny skirt with golden flowers embroidered at the hem. The pale warmth of her skin, the deep chocolate of her eyes—

Jenny’s smile was fading, her expression strangely apprehensive. “Rupert?” she said.

“Ah—sorry,” said Giles, feeling himself blush. “I suppose I’m a bit distracted.”

“Oh?”

“You’re…” He didn’t think he had words to describe Jenny in that moment. He didn’t think words _could_ describe the way the colors looked on her. Ethan’s colors had been brash, bold, _violent_ in their intensity—but Jenny’s were just as warm and rich as they’d seemed that day in the hallway. It felt almost like coming home. “Vibrant,” he said softly.

“Yeah?” Jenny looked more vulnerable than he’d seen her. He had the distinct sense that not many people had seen her like this.

Giles leaned down, slowly, and kissed her again—a longer, drawn-out kiss—until she was soft and pliant against him, her arms twining round his neck to pull him easily closer. Her vulnerability had come with a strange, almost painful-looking rigidity, as though she was expecting him to lash out at any moment. He intended to make it quite clear to her that he would never do so. Carefully, he trailed gentle kisses down the side of her face, unbuttoning the top button of her shirt to press an open-mouthed kiss to her neck. “This all right?” he murmured against her skin.

“Yes,” said Jenny softly.

“And you’re—?”

“Yeah. Yes.” One of his hands was taken in hers, moved between her breasts, and held there. He tugged it free, but only to further unbutton her shirt.

Her bra was black, but with a bluish tint; he hadn’t known that even black could have different colors woven in. Surprisingly fashion-conscious for a woman who couldn’t see color, Giles thought, but now certainly wasn’t the time to bring that up; Jenny shied away from any mentions of soulmates, and he didn’t want to press her now.

“You should get the condom out,” said Jenny suddenly.

“Hm?” Giles had gotten quite distracted by the kissing.

A new glint in her eye, Jenny moved up to lie back on her elbows, pulling Giles’s face up to hers and tugging him down into the pillows with her. As she tangled one hand in his hair, her other hand tugged the foil packet out of his jacket pocket, deftly placing it down on the nearby bedside table. Then her hands were bracing against his chest, pushing him back against the mattress as she straddled him. Her face was still flushed, and while the softness in her eyes was still there, that layer of guarded apprehension had returned. “You know I’m not the kind of girl for sweet nothings, Rupert,” she said.

“I’d never expect you to be,” said Giles simply.

“But I’m not the kind of girl for a quick fuck, either.”

“Jenny,” said Giles, and now it was his turn to sit up a bit, lying back on _his_ elbows to look at her, “I’d never ask for anything but _you,_ just as you are.”

“Just as I am?” There, again, was the vulnerability.

“Just as you are,” said Giles simply. Jenny looked confused and a little conflicted. “Do you need to stop?”

“No, I—” Jenny exhaled. “I want this, I just—” She leaned down, kissing him again, then pulled back. “There are so many reasons this shouldn’t work,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

 _“This.”_ Jenny waved a hand between them. “Are we really all that suited for each other? I mean, god, we spent the last year arguing. It took me a _long_ time to even _consider_ that you might be a human person with human feelings. And now you’re just content to look at me with big doe eyes and kiss me like I’m some kind of Disney princess? It doesn’t feel—I mean, shouldn’t it have been—”

Giles sat up all the way, catching her hands in his, and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. “Jenny, I won’t pretend this won’t be hard,” he said. “I certainly doubt that everything is as easy as you seem to think it is right now. But honesty and communication can go a long way in a relationship, and while our views do clash, we’ve never pretended that we aren’t the people we are. So long as that stays true, I feel _certain_ that the rest will be relatively simple to muddle through.”

The clouds seemed to clear in Jenny’s expression—but not quite for the reason that Giles was expecting. She was looking at him like he was someone extraordinary. “You make me so happy,” she said, softly, almost wondrously.

It was the closest thing to sweet nothings that he had ever received from her, and it took Giles quite aback. “I-I—”

Jenny kissed him again, the same kind of long, tender kiss he had given her. She pushed his jacket down his shoulders, helping him fumble with the rest of his clothing until it was his bare skin against hers. He let her pin him to the mattress; she wasn’t stronger than him, but the look in her eyes held him there so easily. Purposeful and hungry and— _loving,_ almost, though he knew it was all but an impossibility. Jenny seemed hell-bent on refusing destiny, and he could understand that concept quite intimately.

Destiny or not, Giles thought, when he saw Jenny in color, the world seemed to make sense again. “Ms. Calendar—?” he murmured, soft and plaintive, and reached to place his hands at her hips as she took off her bra. Leaning down, she kissed him again, awkwardly squirming out of her skirt in a way that made his arousal flare up. “Jenny—”

 _“Rupert,”_ said Jenny, low and longing, and Giles reminded himself quite firmly that he had all the time in the world to convince her that he wasn’t going anywhere. He pulled her down again to kiss her, but her movements against him were more purposeful than tender. _Goal-oriented,_ he thought with a touch of fondness, letting go of her so that she could awkwardly remove her skirt. He set to work on removing his trousers.

“I can do that,” said Jenny coyly.

“Are you attempting to flirt with me when we are not moments away from intercourse?” said Giles.

“Did you just call it _intercourse?”_ said Jenny, and fell back into the bed in a fit of laughter. “Oh my god, _so_ romantic—”

Trousers and pants alike set carefully aside, Giles leaned over Jenny to pick up and open the condom. Still giggling, Jenny straightened up, taking the condom from him and then dropping it again in another fit of laughter. She was radiant with happiness, Giles realized, in a way devoid of sharp cynicism: the laughter was at _him,_ but in a way that wasn’t mocking or cruel.

“We could call it _an educated discussion,”_ Jenny was saying happily, “if you wanna go all intellectual—and I can’t say I _wasn’t_ turned on when we were arguing back in the staff room last year, that would be a _total_ lie.” She picked up the condom again, helping him put it on while continuing to talk. “You’d get this _look_ in your eyes like you wanted to just—oh, I don’t know, pin me against a wall—”

“I really don’t think that that was the emotion,” said Giles, his heartbeat picking up. It was always Jenny’s careless touches that affected him the most, and she wasn’t quite paying attention to the slow, deliberate strokes of her hand against him. “Jenny, if you would—”

“Hm?” Jenny blinked, then laughed again, a bright, joyous sound. “Oh!” She moved her hands to his shoulders, pushing him back into the pillows.

“Rather,” said Giles, his voice strained, “I got the impression that _you_ would be pinning _me_ down if I didn’t do something about it.”

Jenny positioned herself above him, sinking slowly down, squirming a bit as she adjusted to him. She was biting her lip like she wanted to reply with something just as playfully witty, but as the moments dragged on, it became clear that her focus had shifted entirely to _them_. She began to move; Giles drew in a sharp breath. Her hands against his chest were steadying, and her fingernails were painted a pomegranate red.

The colors seemed to swirl and solidify around them, Jenny as their central point. Dark eyes, dark hair—and yet neither of them were as solidly black as they’d seemed to be. Nor was her skin that pale, pale white, or her lips a soft, strange gray—she was pink and yellow and red, warm and lush and wholly colorful.

It didn’t seem to matter that Giles was the only one to see those colors, but it _did_ matter that Jenny didn’t know that he _could._ She deserved to know, he thought, but it was more of a wordless emotion than a conscious concept. It was hard to think of anything when Jenny looked like _that,_ her breathing coming sharp and fast, her hands braced against his chest. Colorful and bright and warm and _Jenny—_

She caught his face in her hands and pulled him up to her, and he followed her touch instinctively, her mouth meeting his as he came.

* * *

_vi. jenny, regarding giles_

Jenny lay awake long after Rupert had fallen asleep. His head was pillowed on her chest, his arm thrown across her stomach, and it was the first time she’d seen him looking anything close to restful. She carded her fingers through his hair—caramel with hints of grey—and he sighed, shifting towards her even in his sleep. Looking down at him, she felt—god help her, she felt _happy._ She felt like she couldn’t possibly regret the choices that led her here.

Already, the colors were leaving her again—but this was the first time she felt like she wanted them to stay.

Rupert stirred, then opened his eyes, and the soft, slow smile he gave her made her usual headache return. She didn’t know why. She’d given the colors what they’d wanted, hadn’t she? She’d slept with him and held him and admitted he meant something to her. She couldn’t afford to give up anything more.

“Ms. Calendar,” said Rupert.

Even in the midst of her turmoil, it was the easiest thing in the world for him to make her smile. That, to Jenny, felt like more of a miracle than the colors. “Mr. Giles,” she said softly.

“Can we—talk?” said Rupert. He sounded tentative. “About—”

Jenny felt her smile beginning to fade. “About what?”

Rupert hesitated, then shook his head, closing his eyes.

A horrible possibility occurred to Jenny. Though she had been treating this situation like a horrible anomaly, she’d never actually considered that her attempts to hold back the colors could have had an impact on _Rupert_. Tentatively, she said, “Rupert?”

Rupert opened his eyes again, looking up at her with _such_ badly hidden hope.

Something was shattering in Jenny’s heart. “I can’t have a soulmate,” she said. “I just—I _can’t._ I don’t know how.”

She didn’t know how to describe the expression that crossed Rupert’s face. She didn’t think it was as simple as heartbreak: there was concern, tenderness, compassion. Without a word, he moved to kiss her, and she knew that he understood her.

 _Of course he does,_ said a small voice in the back of her head. _Any soulmate of yours would._

“Oh—Jenny,” said Rupert softly, and pulled away, moving up the pillows so it was her cradled in his arms. It took her a moment to realize why he was doing this, and another moment to hide her face in his shoulder. She supposed she didn’t have to hide, though; he already knew she was crying.

* * *

_vii. janna_

To some degree, Giles was able to recognize that he was being wholly hypocritical. After all, he had hidden things from her as well. His omissions regarding Eyghon had started a chain of events that had deeply traumatized Jenny, to the extent that she had needed a significant degree of space before even considering the concept of rekindling their relationship. She seemed to respect his similar need for space; though she’d made some attempts to bridge the gap between them, she’d quietly stepped back when her attempts were met with vitriol.

And yet—

And yet it was clear to him now that the colors had been a warning. The strange flickering, the inconsistency of her affections—though he knew his love for her to be deep and true, the colors reflected what Jenny’s own lies had shown: her feelings for him had been feigned and ingenuine, a means to an end. She had wanted to be closer to Angel, and had found a convenient way to do it. Won over by her awkward kindness—a clear charade, now that he was thinking about it—Rupert Giles had been an easy mark.

It was that, more than anything, that made it impossible for him to look at Jenny Calendar for longer than a second in the hallways. The desperation in her eyes didn’t change the fact that the world remained stubbornly black-and-white, bereft of the colors that had once flickered in and out of his life. Now that he knew the truth, there was color no longer—and that evidence was damning enough for Giles to _never_ forgive her. No matter the guilt in her face, the tiredness that shrouded her in the faculty room—

God, he missed her. Weak man that he was, he dreamed of her every night, the way separated soulmates were wont to do. And yet she _wasn’t_ his soulmate; her heart hadn’t ever been his—it was his own mind playing tricks on him. So desperate for any sort of connection that it latched on to the first pretty face to give him the time of day.

He avoided her to the best of his abilities.

* * *

There was a book. It always came down to an exchange of information. A book to be traded, a book to be scanned, a book to be lent—between them, it was always knowledge, and it hurt to be standing in front of her like this again, asking for her help as though the world hadn’t shattered in the interim. He loved her so much he ached with it. He loved her in that way he’d been afraid to love anyone again, and she had thrown it in his face, and god, he would make this mistake a thousand times over, wouldn’t he? Giving his heart away to someone who didn’t deserve it, didn’t care for it, didn’t _want_ it.

“I know you feel betrayed—” she began, careful and patient, the way she always spoke to her students. He was not one of her fucking students.

“Yes, well,” he said. “That’s one of the unpleasant side effects of betrayal.”

“Rupert—” Jenny looked up at him, helpless, and something in her tone gave him pause. No, not her tone, it was something—something about her hair, the way it fell into her face—

_Brown._

Giles’s heart nearly stopped.

“I was raised by the people that Angel hurt the most,” said Jenny, looking up at him with deep brown eyes. Her face was pink, flushed with humiliation and sadness. “My duty to them was the first thing I was ever taught.” Her blouse had a hint of violet to it, he thought, even though it was more black than anything. “I didn’t come here to hurt anyone.” She wasn’t able to hold his gaze, which was good, because he was staring at her and would never stop staring at her and might possibly forget how to breathe. “A-and I lied to you because I thought it was the right thing to do—”

“Jenny,” said Giles roughly.

Jenny looked up. He saw her eyes widen, her lips part, and he _knew_ that she could see _exactly_ what he saw—blossoming through the classroom, bleeding into the hallway, lighting up their world. _Color._ In a small voice, she said, “Rupert—”

“Jenny,” said Giles, his own voice shaking. “You lied about more than just Angelus, didn’t you?”

“I-I don’t know what you mean,” stammered Jenny, looking away from him again.

Giles took a step forward, his heart hammering in his chest. With shaking hands, he tucked her hair behind her ears, gently pulling her face up to his. She drew in a stuttering breath at his touch. “You said you can’t have a soulmate,” he said unsteadily. “You said you _don’t_ have a soulmate.”

Jenny closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I c-can’t!”

“There’s nothing to lose,” said Giles quietly. “I know about Angelus, Jenny, a-and if you were only seeing me in order to get closer to him—”

Jenny’s eyes flew open at that, a horrified expression on her face. “God, _never!”_ she said emphatically, almost sobbing. “Rupert, how could you possibly think—”

“If that was your reason,” said Giles, determined to get to his point, “then—then I daresay you’re right about not having a soulmate. But—if you were afraid I would turn you away upon your revealing the truth—if _that_ was why you lied, then I rather believe there’s a chance for things to go right.”

“Rupert—”

“Your eyes are an extraordinary shade of brown,” said Giles softly. “Your hair has a bit of a bluish tint, and—and the chalkboard behind us is green—”

Jenny stepped back, shaking her head. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t. I don’t want—”

“Jenny, what color are my eyes?”

Jenny squeezed her eyes tightly shut. The world seemed to be reconfiguring itself in front of Giles, shifting and changing as he began to fully understand exactly why the colors had never stuck. A heart that matched his would be afraid, _so_ afraid, of falling in love—enough, he thought, to attempt to willfully shut it out.

“Green,” she said, in a small, unsteady voice. “There’s a little star in one of them.”

His soulmate was standing in front of him.

“I didn’t want to—I didn’t _mean_ to—I just—I can’t—” Jenny was almost sobbing, cutting herself off every time she tried to start a new sentence. “I-I—”

Giles stepped forward again, slowly, hoping to every knowable and unknowable power that he wouldn’t scare her off. She was hugging her elbows, eyes still shut, trembling like a leaf. The headaches, he thought. The times she’d looked dizzy and angry all at once. How could he have doubted her so easily?

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Jenny whispered.

And _there._ The real, honest truth: the one that made sense with the woman who had always looked so frightened at his gentle words. Giles took her carefully in his arms, and she reached up with tentative hands to brace herself quietly against his chest, tucking her head under his chin. Her breathing came in shuddering gasps as he kissed the top of her head. “I’m not hurt,” he murmured. “I’d only ever be hurt if you had used my love for you to get closer to Angel.”

“Your—love?” said Jenny, moving to look up at him.

Giles gave her a small, slightly terrified smile.

“Oh,” said Jenny, and sniffled, smiling in return. She looked just as nervous as he himself felt, which seemed to relax both of them a bit. Softly, she said, “I’d never use you like that, Rupert. I love you.”

“Well,” said Giles, who supposed he shouldn’t be _quite_ as surprised as he was—especially considering the fact that the world was _full_ of warm, welcoming colors that all seemed to remind him of the woman in his arms. “Well. That’s.”

Still smiling, Jenny bumped her forehead against his. “I love you,” she said again, still a bit unsteadily.

Giles let out a soft, incredulous breath.

Slowly, Jenny tilted her face up to his. “Can I—”

 _“Yes,”_ said Giles before even really thinking about it.

Jenny kissed him, soft and warm. “I love you,” she whispered. “I do. I love you so much.”

It was terrifying and wonderful all in one. Everything he hadn’t let himself wish for had fallen neatly into his lap: Jenny, just as in love with him as he was with her. And yet everything he’d never wish upon Jenny—insecurity, doubt, fear, shame—had been visited upon her tenfold, in part because of his own tendency to believe the worst. “I _am_ sorry,” said Giles softly, bumping his forehead against hers. “I was—foolish, to turn you away so readily.”

“Yeah, a little bit,” said Jenny, which made him smile. “But…I understand why you did it. _I’m_ sorry that I wasn’t honest with you about—god. Pretty much everything?”

“No, I-I do understand why you didn’t tell me about…” Giles trailed off, the gravity of the moment hitting him all over again. “Us being soulmates,” he finished.

“Well, soulmates are kind of a ridiculous concept,” said Jenny, screwing up her face. “Anyone can be anyone’s soulmate. I did some research, and _soulmates_ are actually pretty common? It’s not unusual for people to have multiple ‘soulmates’ depending on how the relationship functions—the colors are really just a significant indicator of potential compatibility. A lot of people really lean into the antiquated notion of— _mmf!”_

Her research really was very thorough, Giles thought, deepening the kiss and lifting Jenny neatly off her feet. She was laughing against his mouth as he stumbled back into the desk, sitting awkwardly down on the edge as she continued to kiss him. “Do explain the concept further,” he whispered breathlessly.

“I’m not _that_ skilled a multitasker,” Jenny informed him.

Giles pulled back, grinning at her. “I’ll eliminate a task,” he said. “Don’t kiss me. Tell me in _full_ detail what you’ve discovered about the antiquated notions surrounding soulmates in our society.”

“Oh, fuck you. I’m never gonna listen to you.” Gripping the lapels of his jacket, Jenny pulled him into another kiss.

“Jenny—”

“No research! Just kissing!”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I _always_ dreamed my soulmate would say,” said Giles dryly.

“Colors don’t lie, asshole,” said Jenny, pulling back with a sharp grin and adoring eyes. “You’re stuck with me.”

“Good lord, I suppose I am,” said Giles, already leaning in to kiss her again. “How _ever_ shall I cope?”

* * *

_viii. calendar-giles_

If she was being honest, Buffy was a little retroactively surprised at how _not_ surprised she was that Giles and Ms. Calendar were soulmates. She hadn’t really imagined Giles as the type of person to have a soulmate, and certainly not the type of person to be _Ms. Calendar’s_ soulmate. The two were so _totally_ different—computers and books, New Age and old-fashioned, techno-whozit and destiny-whatsit. Not the kind of people you’d imagine to be _meant_ to be together.

It took her a little while to figure it out. An embarrassingly long time, actually; Willow had apparently figured it out _way_ back when Ms. Calendar and Giles were at each other’s throats. (Then again, Xander _still_ hadn’t put two and two together, so at least Buffy had _eventually_ clocked the whole soulmate dealio.) Giles forgiving Ms. Calendar for the Angelus debacle didn’t tip her off. Giles nearly beating Angelus to a pulp when he’d tried to kill Ms. Calendar at the school— _that_ didn’t tip her off, either. That whole thing after Acathla, where the doctor at the hospital let Ms. Calendar into Giles’s room first? Buffy kind of just figured that it was because Ms. Calendar and Giles were dating. All things considered, it had taken a while for the proverbial lightbulb to go off above Buffy’s head.

And it had been such a dumb thing, too. Such a small thing. But on a storm-cloud day when Giles looked all tense and angry and kept on snapping at the non-Scooby kids who came into the library, Ms. Calendar had come into the library and set a cup of tea down on the counter. Giles had looked at the tea, and then he’d looked at Ms. Calendar, and there’d been this note of startled wonder to his expression, like he was seeing her for the first time.

And it had all hit Buffy a little bit like a snowball—all the moments compiled into one tiny interaction. All the times Ms. Calendar and Giles had _tried_ to make it work, even when giving up would have been way easier. Soulmates weren’t just written in the stars: soulmates were a cup of tea on a rainy day.

“What color’s that mug?” she asked, just to check.

“Blue,” said Giles.

“Eh,” said Ms. Calendar. “I’d call it turquoise more than anything.”

This then started a weirdly impassioned argument between Giles and Ms. Calendar that kept going for a good ten minutes, but both of them were all sparkly and smiling and Giles kept on taking long, happy sips of his tea. _Definitely_ soulmates, Buffy thought, and went back to her history homework with a roll of her eyes.


End file.
